Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Embattled cop got into a heated face-off at nightclub
Altercation happened months before he shoved protester
FORT LAUDERDALE — Months before making headlines for shoving a protester, Fort Lauderdale Police Officer Steven Pohorence was investigated by his department for allegedly threatening an attendant who stopped him from getting into a nightclub at Hard Rock Stadium. Witnesses said he was drunk and belligerent during the heated encounter.
The stadium’s staff complained that Pohorence, while off duty, whipped out his police badge and tried to force his way into the stadium’s Club LIV. One employee accused the officer of threatening her when she denied him access, according to an internal affairs report obtained by the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
The encounter in December 2019 drew the attention of three stadium employees and two Miami-Dade police officers who said Pohorence was stumbling and slurring his speech.
A formal complaint was filed against Pohorence, who denied threatening the attendant and said he only showed his badge to prove he wasn’t a bad person. His police department cleared him of improper conduct in January, arguing there wasn’t enough evidence to prove the most serious allegations.
According to internal affairs records, Pohorence and another officer were found guilty of failing to report the off-duty police interaction. The records don’t reflect what, if any, disciplinary action the officers faced as a result.
Pohorence, who has been on unpaid administrative leave since July, is one of the officers thrust into the spotlight last year over how the police force handled a Black Lives Matter demonstration in May, in which the department fired tear gas and rubber bullets to tame the chaotic crowd. Pohorence was seen on video shoving a kneeling woman, which protesters blamed as the reason why the crowd grew angry. Pohorence was charged with battery for shoving the woman, a criminal case that’s still pending against him.
He has had at least two other internal affairs cases opened into him since he joined the force in 2016. Internal Affairs found no wrongdoing in both cases. His personnel file shows he’s been involved with about a dozen violent arrests and
cleared for his role in all of them.
No access into the club
On Dec. 22, 2019, Pohorence went to a Miami Dolphins game with his supervisor at the time, Sgt. Wilgienson Auguste, and two other off-duty officers, internal affairs records show.
He said he drank a few beers and ate before he and Auguste tried to get into Club LIV inside Hard Rock Stadium.
When an attendant stopped them because they did not have the $240 tickets, she said Pohorence flashed his badge. When she denied him again, he said, “I’m going to remember this if I ever see you outside of here,” according to her statements to police.
Pohorence said he never threatened the attendant. “I don’ t know why she said that, but those words never came out of my mouth.”
Auguste said it was loud in the stadium and didn’t hear anything although he was only a foot away. He acknowledged both attendants became defensive after something Pohorence said.
In their statements, both officers said the attendants were hostile when they didn’t immediately show tickets. Pohorence said he flashed his badge to show the two men weren’t “bad people” trying to sneak in. He said he tried to explain they had a friend bringing them tickets and had tried many times to get in touch with that friend.
Throughout the 10-minute interaction, no friend appeared. The officers never showed proof that they ever paid for tickets.
After the alleged threat, the attendant said Pohorence called over a Miami-Dade Police officer and asked him to take him into the club. Pohorence said he asked the officer to witness his bad customer service.
Calling in stadium security
The interaction became heated enough to draw the attention of the head of security at Hard Rock stadium and yet another Miami-Dade Police officer patrolling the area.
Dave Lassiter, the director of stadium security and a former FBI agent, told police that Pohorence “probably had too much to drink.”
He said he stumbled and slurred. When he identified himself to Pohorence as the head of security and asked him to leave, he recalled Pohorence saying, “Oh. So, you’re the big director of security.”
Auguste said Lassiter called Pohorence and himself “embarrassments” and only aggravated tensions. At some point, video evidence shows Auguste pulled out his phone and began to record the interaction. According to a police department review of camera footage, Lassiter appears to reach for Auguste’s phone. Auguste said Lassiter was trying to hit him and grab the phone.
Lassiter brought the complaint against Pohorence and Auguste. He told the Fort Lauderdale Police Department he was “hesitant” to report the incident and his “intent is not to get anybody in trouble.” But he said the attendant who said she was threatened lived in Fort Lauderdale and was scared.
Neither the attendant nor Lassiter responded to requests for comment.
A captain from the internal affairs department wrote that Pohorence and the woman offered conflicting versions of what happened and “there was no independent witness testimony or available evidence” to prove the alleged threat.
He also wrote that although the attendant told police she lived in Fort Lauderdale, she in fact lives 20 miles over in Weston. He said the likelihood of an encounter between the woman and Pohorence was “improbable.”
Two Miami-Dade Police officers at the scene told the Fort Lauderdale Police Department that Pohorence smelled of alcohol and was observed being loud and obnoxious. “He was, you know, belligerent,” one officer said.
Auguste and Pohorence eventually left the scene. Pohorence said they went to another entrance gate and walked right into Club LIV without tickets.
Neither Pohorence nor Auguste immediately reported the scuffle, because, they said, they considered it resolved.
Pohorence did not respond to a request for comment by the Sun Sentinel.
Philip Sweeting, a retired deputy chief of the Boca Raton Police Department, said he was surprised that Pohorence didn’t receive any punishment from the department for the incident, given the number of witnesses who remarked on his conduct.
Referrring to the shoving incident during the protest, he said, “You would consider the prior incidents, Because obviously his pushing of the girl was somewhat aggressive behavior.”
When asked in an interview with internal affairs investigators if he thought his conduct at the Hard Rock Stadium embarrassed himself and the department, Pohorence said no. He said the Dolphins staff should be embarrassed.
“I mean they were treating us extremely poorly,” he said. “They didn’t believe that we had tickets, they didn’t believe that we were allowed to be there.”
Auguste said he didn’t believe Pohorence’s actions crossed the line. But he did admit the interaction could have been handled better. “I would have liked to see him be a little bit more calm like I was,” Auguste said of Pohorence.
Pohorence’s next court date for the battery case is in March.